While Planet Earth II may have blown all our minds when it was broadcast last year, one nature expert was less impressed.

Springwatch presenter Martin Hughes-Games has argued that the Sir David Attenborough show is "a disaster for the world's wildlife" and presents an "escapist fantasy".

He wrote in The Guardian: "These programmes are still made as if this worldwide mass extinction is simply not happening.

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"The producers continue to go to the rapidly shrinking parks and reserves to make their films - creating a beautiful, beguiling, fantasy world, a utopia where tigers still roam free and untroubled, where the natural world exists as if man had never been."

Hughes-Games suggested that Attenborough and his team are "lulling the huge worldwide audience into a false sense of security", adding that "no hint of the continuing disaster is allowed to shatter the illusion."

"Even as Planet Earth II was being broadcast, it was reported that elephant and lion numbers were tumbling, and last month it became clear that the giraffe could be heading towards extinction, with numbers plummeting by 40% in the past 15 years," Hughes-Games added.

It should be noted that at the end of the recent series, Attenborough did make a strong plea to protect the wild, stressing how it is "our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth".

The broadcasting legend has also said that the medium of television could provide a stronger link between an urbanised population and the natural world.

"More people are out of touch with the natural world than have ever been," Attenborough said at a press event in October. "But since we depend on the natural world, understanding it is absolutely paramount.

"Television can provide that link better than ever before, in some ways. Fifty years ago, there was hardly a species on [Planet Earth II] that anyone would have seen. Now everybody has. It's remarkable, and it's valuable."

Hughes-Games insisted that he was not advocating for programmes like Planet Earth II to cease to be made, but that "fantasy should be balanced by reality".

He conceded: "It has been wonderful watching Planet Earth II. What a glorious, spectacular and fascinating series... We have surely never been so close to the action and never have the pictures looked so luxurious."

Planet Earth II became the most-watched nature programme in 15 years, and even beat The X Factor final in ratings with young viewers.